Category: Thoughts

I have noticed over the months I have been working on my app that managing foreign languages like Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc takes a memory hit to the point that it spikes up the memory usage–as one would expect. Sure, I expect more memory usage… but we are talking about a spike from 60mb (normal usage) to 80-100mb usage per entry–thus I was forced to call garbage collector manually as I couldn’t wait for the QML/JavaScript engine to do the clean up when there’s “inactivity”.

So, I was worried and added initial linux support to my app (never been planned to be released under linux) and found out that languages such as Japanese walks a fine line of 40mb memory usage. The garbage collector works twice as fast as well. For example, in Windows I’d call garbage collector and it doesn’t do it that fast. In linux? Blazing fast. It’s not much about the speedness of how fast it takes to free the memory, it’s the usage. I’m talking that Windows still takes 60-80mb+ (and up) while the linux build keeps walking the 40-50mb line.

Now, initially I suspected a memory leak, but that wasn’t the case. The Windows build just takes that much memory, and it worries me. Part of what keeps me at ease is that since this will be an android application; I can expect the same behavior that I get here in my linux mint in Android. Memory will be freed and the usage will be kept at minimum.

Granted: Pure naked eye seeing memory usage is not enough to suggest there’s a memory leak or that there’s a memory mismanagement, that’s the job of a profiler After running valgrind a few times I couldn’t find any memory leak just petty warnings, so I proceeded to guard against it, well, it wasn’t much about guarding as I honestly needed to free the objects that are no longer needed after X time. Plus, I also rationalized the usage that Windows is just being Windows… maybe Qt is pulling something that requires big allocations in Windows, but not in Linux for whatever reason. I do think that it has something to do with the font mechanism in general… but who knows at this point.

Ever since we had the privilege to use Gmail (Googlemail) e-mail service back in 2004 Google became our favorite search engine, and truly our favorite e-mail service dethroning hotmail, yahoo, and other popular services by introducing a fresh look.

Its feature rich web interface and the features it offered made me rave in delight for days and weeks. Over the years, the hidden price of using such service unfolded to see it plagued with privacy issues.

This type of issue may make some throw hands up while rolling your eyes with a “here we go again…”. Truth? Most of us have nothing to hide, yes. Having “nothing to hide” is the go-to response to privacy concern issue in which I find quite short-sighted as it’s enabling Google as a company to keep this practice.

Perhaps I am too paranoid, maybe. I’d also like to keep whatever I talk to between my colleagues, friends, relatives in private and not be part of Google’s targeted ads. Which reminds me, did you know that anything you talk through Google Hangouts is also used for ads? No? Give it a try.

All in all, I am cursed. You hear me right, I am cursed because for many many years I have used the same e-mail address in services like Amazon, Ebay, PayPal, Facebook, you name it. And now I am “forever” tied to Google ads machine. What I fear is not the Ads machine but what comes after it.

Profiling your behavior

Search behaviors

All the searches you have made, all the things you have talked through google services is going to become a carcass of what you may may not do. It takes no genius to realize that the could also be gathering data of the places you visit through the millions and millions of sites that uses Google Analytics, including this site. Has there been a report as such? Not really, at least not yet.

Google have given us ever reason to distrust it. Sadly the giant is so big nobody sees the threat up in the air. As for me I have to find ways to transfer all the services I use to the new e-mail.

To those who wonder which e-mail service protects your privacy:

Check out Posteo.de they also do transparency reports and often calls out on authority abuse.